BENGALURU: The Congress on Wednesday raised a formal complaint with election authorities, alleging serious irregularities in electoral rolls in Rajarajeshwari Nagar. Lodging the complaint with Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar Meena, Bengaluru Rural MP DK Suresh alleged, “About 1.30 lakh fake voter names have been included unofficially, as compared to the voter roll last time. The names of around 75,000 voters have been illegally deleted from the list. Penal action needs to be taken.’’
The Congress MP lodged the complaint with Congress MLA candidate in the last bypoll, Kusuma H Hanumantharayappa, and other local leaders, and was accompanied by block level leaders Rampura Nagesh amd Gopala Krishna.
Thousands of fake names have been added, with their address at vacant plots, Suresh alleged. “Names of Congress supporters, including minorities and Vokkaligas, have been mischievously dropped from the list in this assembly constituency,” he said.
“BJP leaders, ministers and MLAs in Bengaluru, through the organisation ‘Chilume’, committed huge irregularities in the name of updating electoral rolls. Around 90,000 voters were added to Rajarajeshwari Nagar constituency from 2018 to January 2022, and around 40,000 voters were added from January 2022 to November 9, 2022, while 1.30 lakh voters were added after the last assembly elections,” Suresh alleged.
The Election Commission announced that around 40,000 voters were deleted from the electoral rolls between May 2018 and January 2022, and names of 26,000 voters were omitted from January 22 to November 9. A total of 75,000 voters were removed.
A voter who wants to add or remove her name in the electoral roll, has to apply on Form 6 and 7. On the directions of MLAs and the minister, the voters’ list was revised without these forms. Bogus voters have been invited from other states too, Suresh said.